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1. The rolls of King John in Corfe Castle, 1227

⁋1In the last fine of the month, I referred to the way the fine rolls came to include writs to the exchequer informing it of the terms on which sheriffs and other custodians held their offices. Another development was the inclusion of writs, likewise addressed to the exchequer, dealing with the pardon and respite of debts and the rates of their repayment. The writ which is the subject of this months’s comment is an example of this second development. It also has a more particular interest. It provides, as far as I know, the only specific evidence that after John’s death, indeed as late as 1227, his ‘rolls’ were at Corfe castle. The writ is given below. ¹

⁋2The William Talbot mentioned in the writ was to become a household knight under Henry III, and may already have been acting in that capacity under John. ² The payment he claimed to have made into the wardrobe was from monies raised from three Lincolnshire knights, who, in March-April 1216, had fined for the king’s grace following their rebellion. ³ The wardrobe itself was the department of the king’s household responsible for storing his clothes and general bag and baggage. It was thus a natural repository for money which flowed into the king on his travels, performing this function throughout the reign of Henry III. Under John, however, as a glance at the pipe roll indexes will show, this function was more often performed by the chamber (in origin the room where the king lived), although in terms of location and personnel the distinction between wardrobe and chamber can never have been very great. Any suspicion that Talbot’s own payment was made into the chamber seems removed by a letter patent from April 1216 which does indeed show him paying money from a closely related fine into the wardrobe. ⁴

⁋3The precise nature of the rolls at Corfe on which Talbot hoped to find evidence of his payment is not stated. They may well have been those on which the chancery recorded its output, for it was certainly on one of these (the patent rolls) that the letter mentioning Talbot’s analogous payment in 1216 had appeared. ⁵ Alternatively, or in addition, perhaps Talbot hoped his payment would appear on a roll recording the flow of money into wardrobe. No wardrobe or chamber receipt rolls survive from John’s reign, or indeed seem referred to, but there are some rolls recording the flow of money out of the household in the form of loans (prests) and a whole series of other miscellaneous payments. ⁶ When we get to Henry’s reign one wardrobe receipt roll does survive, ⁷ and others are referred to in the accounts of the keepers of the wardrobe on the pipe rolls. ⁸ It seems highly likely that they also existed in John’s reign. Unfortunately, no further light is shed on the matter by any evidence about the results of the inquiry ordered in the 1227 writ. Talbot’s debt simply disappears from the pipe rolls. It is there in the Wiltshire section of the pipe roll for 1227-8 but vanishes in that for 1228–29. ⁹

⁋4That the rolls of King John should, at some point, have been deposited at Corfe is not surprising. The great castle, at the end of the reign, also housed his jewels and his regalia. ¹⁰ John himself was there in June and July 1216 and again briefly in August before setting off on his last campaign. All this may have a wider significance. The circumstances at the end of John’s reign were highly unusual, but that does not mean they were unusual in the treatment of his rolls. It may well be that it was quite normal practice, at the start of a new reign, to deposit the rolls of the old one in some castle treasury, especially if the exchequers of Westminster or Caen were geographically remote. Is this the reason why no chancery rolls survive before the start of John’s reign in 1199? Of course, the usual reason given for this by historians is quite different. It is a question not of survival but of creation, for it is only, so it is suggested, at the start of John’s reign that the chancery rolls themselves come into being. In fact, however, all historians would agree that at least one set of chancery rolls had an earlier life, namely the fine rolls themselves. ¹¹ Since they once existed, yet have been lost, the same may be true of the other chancery rolls, and in particular of the close rolls, for whose life before 1199 H.G. Richardson made a powerful case, although one which has been widely ignored or misunderstood. ¹² In the light of what happened to John’s rolls, the fate of those produced by Henry II and Richard may be clearer. Henry died at Chinon, the great castle at the very centre of the Angevin empire. Richard’s body rested at Chinon before proceeding, like his father’s, to burial at Fontevrault. What more natural, therefore, than that Chinon should become the repository of the rolls of both these kings. There perhaps they remained until the collapse of the Angevin empire and the capture of Chinon by the French in 1205. Unlike the rolls of King John, there was no way they could be recovered by the clerks of chancery or the household even had they wished. All this is speculation, but it is speculation to which I hope to return more fully in a future paper. In the end, the fate of John’s rolls themselves, if both those of the chancery and the household were at Corfe, was very different. The chancery ultimately recovered its materials which is why they survive. Perhaps the household officials, with less attachment to record preservation (a characteristic throughout their history) simply left theirs to rot at Corfe, which is why very largely they have vanished.

⁋5One final note about royal revenue. That of King John has been meticulously calculated from the pipe rolls by Nick Barratt. ¹³ It needs to be remembered, however, that money paid cash down and in full into the wardrobe or the chamber for grace and favour would normally never get into the pipe rolls since there was no money for the exchequer to collect. ¹⁴ Later in Henry’s reign such money, when offered as a fine, was sometimes recorded on the fine rolls, but accompanied by a note that it had already been paid into the wardrobe. In that case the fine was not copied on to the originalia rolls and no information about it reached the exchequer. In other cases, especially when money was offered simply as a ‘gift’, it might not appear on the fine rolls at all. Figures for revenue derived simply from the pipe rolls will, therefore, always be underestimates, as all those who have attempted to add them up have recognised. Had the wardrobe and chamber receipt rolls from the reigns of John and Henry III survived, this gap could have been remedied, or at least in so far as such rolls were comprehensive. The wardrobe accounts enrolled on the pipe rolls (where receipts are given from the wardrobe’s rolls) provide some substitute for Henry’s reign but not, since such accounts do not exist, for the reign of King John. Since John’s exaction of ‘gifts’ was almost certainly large, the loss of the rolls mentioned in the Talbot writ, if they included those recording money coming into the household, is all the more to be regretted.

2.1. C 60/25 Fine Roll 11 Henry III (28 October 1226–27 October 1227), membrane 10

2.1.1. 96

⁋1 For William Talbot. Order to the barons of the Exchequer to place in respite the demand of 34 m. that they make from William Talbot for the time of King John, which William paid into the Wardrobe of King John, as he says, until the king will be certain and will inquire by the rolls of King John, which are in Corfe castle, whether he paid those 34 m. into the Wardrobe of King John or not. 4 Feb. [1227]. Westminster.